Yes, as I said, if we accept your claim at face value, that every dollar of American practitioner-side insurance overhead --- not the delta from Canada, but every single dollar of it --- is mis-spent, you managed to identify 3.6% of the waste in the system. Congratulations.

I said earlier we'd gone round-and-round on this topic before, and I was a little burned out on it, but I didn't expect you to refute your own argument like this. I'm glad we gave it another run this time! This is a great statistic; I'll be using it elsewhere. Thank you.

▲

ceejayoz an hour ago | parent [-]

Insurance has more than one way to run the costs up; this is but one of them. Weird rebate deals with drug manufacturers. Vertical integration. Buying practices and paying them higher rates.

> I was a little burned out on it

I just did my taxes and am a little burned out by the $49k in healthcare expenses I got to deduct on them.

▲

tptacek an hour ago | parent [-]

I look forward to the next 3% you find and put on the table!

later

Fun fact: given your background and field, you probably come out significantly ahead of where you'd be in countries with single-payer health care. That's despite the fact that those countries have significantly healthier systems where doctors don't make 3-5x the G20 average and where overprescription and overdelivery isn't as rampant as it is here.

The numbers really do a number on a lot of the narratives people bring to these discussions.

	▲	ceejayoz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Fun fact: given your background and field, you probably come out significantly ahead of where you'd be in countries with single-payer health care. Oh, absolutely not. I’ve done the math on that, for sure. Unfortunately, one family member has a condition that makes emigration infeasible.